Best AI for SEO, picked by job

Picking what to write about is where the money is, and it takes real search volume and difficulty data. Ahrefs and Semrush both run their own keyword databases and track competitors' rankings.

AhrefsLite is $129 a month and includes Keywords Explorer and Site Audit. There's also a $29 Starter plan sold for "See what people search and spy on competitors." (Ahrefs pricing, as of October 2026)

Semrush's SEO plan is $139 a month, or $117.33 a month billed yearly. There's a free plan with no credit card and a 7-day trial of the paid plans. (Semrush pricing, as of October 2026)

Both are good. I use Ahrefs for Draftly's own keyword work, and the numbers on this page came from it. If you only need a handful of lookups a month, Draftly Solopreneur includes 40 keyword lookups (volume, difficulty, intent and related terms) through its connector for Claude and ChatGPT.

Draftly reads your website, builds your brand voice from it, picks topics and writes the post. Every post is checked against SEO copywriting rules and for AI-sounding writing before you see it, then publishes in one click to WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Ghost, Squarespace or HubSpot.

Solopreneur is $29 a month for about 66 posts a month with 2 team members. Growth is $69 a month with 5 team members and no per-seat charge. Your first post is free.

Skip it ifyou need posts in languages other than English or you're outside the US. Draftly also doesn't do keyword research at Ahrefs depth, build links or track rankings.

Two cheaper options sell by volume:

• Koala is $25 a month for 45,000 words and publishes to WordPress, Shopify, Webflow and Ghost. (Koala pricing, as of October 2026)
• SEOWriting.ai is $19 a month, or $14 billed yearly, for up to 50 articles, publishing to WordPress and Shopify. (SEOWriting.ai pricing, as of October 2026)

The Writesonic alternatives page compares these writers in more detail.

Most of these tools let you pick the model, or pick it for you. We tested 14 models on the same three blog briefs under the same rules on October 6, 2026, scoring formatting, human voice and 18 SEO checks (keyword placement, meta title, meta description and FAQ).

• Qwen 3.8 Max scored highest at 95.1 and passed 18 of 18 SEO checks.
• Claude Opus 5.5 scored 93.8 with 18 of 18, at 9.9 cents a post.
• Claude Sonnet 5.5 scored 92.8 with 17 of 18, at 4.9 centsa post. It's Draftly's default.
• GPT 5.4 Mini scored 90.2 at 0.9 cents a post, the best result for the money.

The newest model in a family can lose to a smaller one. GPT 5.5 scored 87.6, below GPT 5.4 Mini, after losing points for length and contrast phrasing. Claude Haiku 4.5 came last at 74 with 29 em dashes across three posts.

Full results are on the best AI for writing benchmark, and Claude vs ChatGPT for writing puts the two families side by side. Draftly lets you pick from all 14 models on paid plans.

If you'd rather write in a chat app, Claude Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly. (Claude pricing, as of October 2026)

These tools compare your page with the pages already ranking and tell you which terms and topics you're missing. They're most useful on posts that rank on page two.

Surfer Discovery is $49 a month billed yearly for 120 documents with AI SEO guidelines. Standard is $99 a month billed yearly for 360 documents, AI visibility tracking and WordPress and Google Docs integrations. (Surfer pricing, as of October 2026)

Clearscope Essentials is $129 a month for 50 pages, 20 drafts a month and unlimited users, with a 14-day trial and no minimum contract. (Clearscope pricing, as of October 2026)

For older posts on WordPress, the Draftly WordPress plugin checks posts you already have and saves approved edits as revisions. The free content refresh checker flags which posts are going stale.

The question everyone is asking now: does ChatGPT or Gemini mention you? Most of the big tools have added tracking for it, so check what you already pay for first.

• Semrush includes AI search tracking on its plans, with 50 prompts tracked daily on Starter ($199 a month). (Semrush pricing, as of October 2026)
• Clearscope tracks queries across ChatGPT and Gemini on every plan. (Clearscope pricing, as of October 2026)
• Surfer sells AI Search Analytics on its own at $82 a month billed yearly for 50 prompts. (Surfer pricing, as of October 2026)
• Ahrefs Lite includes 5 tracked AI prompts. Its Brand Radar AI add-on starts at $199 a month. (Ahrefs pricing, as of October 2026)

Before you pay for tracking, run the free AI visibility checker. It tells you whether AI crawlers can read your site at all. Draftly doesn't track mentions.

Google Search Console is a free Google service. It shows which queries bring people to your site, which pages are indexed and your Core Web Vitals on mobile and desktop. (Search Console, Search Console Help, as of October 2026)

Ahrefs Free audits your own verified sites for 170+ technical and on-page issues, with 5,000 crawl credits per project a month, and shows up to 1,000 of your backlinks and keywords. (Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, as of October 2026)

For a single post, the free blog post SEO checker and FAQ schema generator cover the on-page basics without a sign-up.

A small business on a budget, $29 a month.Google Search Console and Ahrefs Free for data, Draftly's free checkers for on-page fixes, and Draftly Solopreneur for one or two posts a week.

A marketing team. Ahrefs Lite or Semrush for research and AI tracking, Surfer or Clearscope for refreshing pages that slipped, and Draftly Growth at $69 a month so 5 people write in one brand voice. See Draftly for teams for how seats and client sites work.

Google's own guidance is that it rewards high-quality content however it's produced. (Google Search Central, as of October 2026)

Whatever you pick, have someone who knows the business read every post before it goes live. They'll catch the wrong price or the service you stopped offering, which no SEO tool will.